Chapter 7 – THE TRAITOR IN THE BLOOD

I stared at the name on the flight itinerary.

Julian Santoro.

My mind violently rejected what my eyes were seeing.

Julian was bleeding out in the backseat of Marco’s SUV outside. Julian had warned us about the attack. Julian had taken a bullet for us.

“Tessa, get down here!” Marco yelled from the garage floor.

I shoved the bloody itinerary into my pocket, grabbed Leo’s hand, and rushed out of the office. We hurried down the metal stairs to the main floor.

Marcus Ashford was unconscious on the concrete, bleeding heavily from his shattered knee. Mrs. Walsh was standing beside Marco, holding a heavy wrench defensively.

“Sabrina is dead,” I told Marco, my voice shaking. “Someone shot her from the catwalk.”

Marco’s eyes darted upward, scanning the dark rafters.

“Professional hit. They were tying up loose ends. We need to move. Now.”

We ran back through the fire door, into the freezing rain.

The armored SUV was right where we left it.

Marco threw open the driver’s door. I opened the back door to check on Julian.

The backseat was empty.

A pool of dark blood stained the tan leather where he had been sitting, but Julian was gone.

“Marco!” I shouted.

Marco ran around the back of the truck.

He looked at the empty seat, then at the blood trail leading down the alleyway, washing away in the heavy rain.

“He ran,” Marco whispered, disbelief coloring his voice.

“Why would he run? He needs a hospital.”

I reached into my pocket with a trembling hand.

I pulled out the bloody flight itinerary and held it out to him.

“Marco… Sabrina was holding this when she died. Look at the name.”

Marco took the paper.

He turned on a small tactical flashlight, illuminating the text.

When he read his son’s name, the light in his hand shook.

For a terrifying moment, the unbreakable mafia boss looked utterly broken.

“Julian?” he whispered.

“Sabrina said someone inside your house orchestrated your wife’s death,” I said softly.

“Julian booked a flight to Rome for tomorrow morning. He was planning to leave.”

“He was twelve years old when Elena died!” Marco roared, slamming his fist against the armored roof of the SUV. The sound was like a thunderclap.

“He was a child! He didn’t hire a hitman to kill his own mother!”

“No,” a voice said from the shadows of the alley.

“He didn’t.”

We all spun around, guns raised.

Stepping out from behind a dumpster, holding his bleeding side with one hand and a suppressed pistol in the other, was Julian.

He looked like a ghost. His face was chalk-white, his lips blue.

He didn’t point the gun at us.

He dropped it onto the wet asphalt.

“I didn’t kill Mom,” Julian choked out, leaning against the brick wall to keep from falling.

“But I knew who did.”

Marco took a slow step toward his son.

His gun was still raised, pointed directly at Julian’s chest.

“Who?”

Julian coughed, spitting a mixture of blood and rainwater.

He looked at his father with absolute, crushing guilt.

“Uncle Lorenzo.”

Marco froze.

“Lorenzo has been exiled in Sicily for ten years. He has no power here.”

“He has power over the Ashfords,” Julian wheezed.

“Lorenzo promised Marcus the freight routes if he got rid of Mom. But Marcus botched it. Mom put the evidence in the Zurich box before she died. Lorenzo has been trying to find the key for eight years.”

“And you knew?” Marco’s voice cracked.

“You sat at my table, you lived in my house, and you knew my brother killed my wife?”

Julian slid down the brick wall, finally collapsing onto the wet pavement.

“I found out a year ago. Lorenzo contacted me. He told me if I didn’t help him find the key, he’d kill you next. He sent Sabrina to manipulate me. To get inside the house.”

Julian looked at me, tears streaming down his face.

“That’s why Sabrina hired you, Tessa. She knew your husband had the key. When David died, she thought he hid it in your apartment. She’s been searching your things for ten months. When you fell today… she didn’t just push you. She found the key on your neck.”

It all made sense. The cruelty. The constant monitoring. The “accident” on the cellar stairs.

“I booked the ticket to Rome to run away,” Julian sobbed. “I couldn’t take it anymore, Dad. I was a coward. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Marco stood in the rain, staring at his dying son.

The ultimate betrayal.

But Marco lowered his gun.

He walked over, knelt in the puddle of blood, and scooped his son into his arms.

“You’re an idiot,” Marco whispered, pressing his forehead against Julian’s. “But you’re my blood.”

Marco looked back at me.

“Get in the car. We’re going to the clinic. He’s not dying tonight.”

I hurried Leo and Mrs. Walsh into the SUV.

But as Marco lifted Julian toward the vehicle, a pair of headlights suddenly flared at the end of the alley.

A sleek, black Mercedes sedan blocked our exit.

The doors opened.

Stepping out into the rain, holding a long black umbrella and wearing a perfectly tailored Italian suit, was a man who looked exactly like an older, crueler version of Marco.

Lorenzo Santoro.

“Hello, little brother,” Lorenzo called out over the storm.

“I hear you have something that belongs to me.”

TITLE: The Blood of Brothers

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